Product Description

User Reviews

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
SteveA
a Audio Enthusiast

Date Reviewed: December 7, 2010

Bottom Line:

Bought one of these brand new. Had it for about three months and started to get intermittent left side channel drop out. I've had tube equipment on and off since the mid-80s so I understand some of the challenges tube equipment can have. I tried swapping out tubes and swapping tubes from the left channel to the right. The intermittent drop out stayed with the left channel. I live about 15 minutes away from Jolida's Annapolis Junction location so I stopped by with the unit. After walking around the factory/show room for about 10 minutes, a technician came out, He hooked up the unit and spent some time with me listening to the unit. Of course just like when you bring your car to a mechanic, the unit worked perfectly. Since the unit was still under warranty, the technician said he would check the unit out on the bench and do some tests. He said he would call me in a week. After about 10 days, I went back since I hadn't heard anything. I was greeted by the owner (Mr. Allen) who was very condesending. He told me that I wasted the tech's time as they didn't find a problem with the unit. I told him the problem was intermittent but he said I didn't know what I was doing and that the sound I was hearing was "tube rush" As I said, I've used tube equipment off and on since the mid-80s and know what tube rush sounds like. It doesn't sound like the channel dropping out, The owner threaten to charge me for the technicians time but didn't. I took the unit home and after 10 minutes, the problem surfaced again. I ended up giving the unit away to a friend whot wants to fix it. Since then, I've been using a Simaudio Moon LP 5.3 with no problems. I've heard others complain about Jolida quality and their customer service. It's ashame they can't get their quality control problems solved. It's even more of a shame that a company with high end aspirations can't provide acceptable customer service. High end audio's bread and butter is the customers base. In such a niche market, they might as well just shoot themselves in the foot. No matter how well their products sound, I wouldn't buy another Jolida product.

I wasn't so sure at first... But, after quite a bit of messing around, I've found the Jolida to be excellent sounding, extremely versatile and quite a bargain. A little more dynamic than entry-level... Very nice mids that sound neither recessed or overly warm. It has enough tweak settings to make just about any cartridge really "sing" without things getting overly complicated. Although, it could probably use just one more impedance load setting a little lower for carts like the Audio Technica OC-9.

Wasn't crazy about the sound with the stock Chinese tubes. A little "closed in" and grainy sounding. Harsh in the upper mids. Poor extension at the frequency extremes. I've found many NOS and "premium" current production 12AX7s don't seem to sound great in the Jolida. They seem to have a little too much gain, maybe because the design was tweaked to use the Chinese tubes which seem to have a little less gain than many 12AX7s. Probably why the last reviewer preferred the 5751 tubes with a little less gain when going NOS. I've found the Sovtek 12AX7 LPS also work very well if you want to go with less expensive current production tubes. Very smooth and balanced sounding in the Jolida. Good definition and a more "open" sound with better frequency extension than the stock tubes. The Groove Tubes "Mullard" reissues everybody was recommending for the Jolida awhile back didn't sound too bad. Warm and smooth, but there was a lack of definition to the soundstage I didn't care for. The Sovtek LPS seem to do definition and detail a little better without getting any harsher or brighter.

Also, even after finding tubes and settings I liked for it, I always thought it sounded just a little bit on the lean or bright side and considered replacing it with something else several times. That was until I tried something I read about in the online 6 moons review of the JD-9A... They recommend removing the spring loaded tube covers that come installed in the Jolida. I never tried it, thinking it couldn't possibly make a difference. I also thought they were probably necessary for shielding and I'd have hum problems if I removed them. Well... I finally tried removing them one day and although I sure don't understand why, there was definitely a difference. The low frequency energy increased just a bit and that little bit was enough to make the Jolida go from sounding a little on the thin side to nice and balanced to my ear. No problems with hum either. I've been extremely happy with it ever since and no longer give any thought to trying something else. So, if you've got a JD-9A and haven't tried removing those covers yet, give it a shot and you may like what you hear.

This is a very good way for the novice audiophile to get into vinyl. This phono preamp and a good TT selling for less than $1000 should delight all but the most dedicated vinyl collecting audiophiles.

The JD9 is very versatile. It can be used with a wide range of moving coil cartridges, both low and high output, as well as moving magnet designs. I have tried the unit with three different cartridges — two MC, one MM — with excellent results. A set of dip switches on the back of the unit allow the user to select from eight different characteristics (4 for MC loading, and 4 for MM), and three different output levels (70, 85 & 95 dB). Either of the 2 higher output levels are fine for low to medium output MCs — say up to .75 mV. If you have a high output MC, then you will probably want to choose the 70 dB setting to allow for the greatest control over volume levels from your preamp.

If you use a moving magnet cartridge, you might find that the sound quality degrades a bit through the low (200 mV) outputs unless you have a competent dealer replace the resistor used to lower the signal to one of a higher quality. Although you will lose a little control over the volume levels by selecting the high (1.8 V) output jacks, the sound has a greater balance over the entire frequency spectrum. Using the low output jacks in stock form, I found the sound thins out a bit and sounds less dynamic.

The sound from this preamp belies its moderate price. It is very detailed and dynamic with excellent timbre and transparency. Spatial qualities are great too, offering excellent image depth and width.

I found that I could improve the overall sound of the JD9 by replacing its stock Jolida 12AX7s with a pair of vintage 5751s. I tried a total of 9 different brands of tubes (both 5751 & 12AX7) before deciding on which tube suited my tastes best. In general, I found that RCA, Sylvania and GE 5751s sounded more alike than any of the current production and NOS (new old stock) 12AX7 versions did. There was just a bit more polish with these than any of the 12AX7 tubes.